Hardcore Rogue Class Overview

If you are curious about more general Hardcore tips that apply to not just Rogue checkout our Hardcore Classic Overview that includes tips and tricks that will greatly increase your chances of surviving.

Strengths

• Stealth allows you to traverse often dangerous areas safely.
• Highest single target kill speed of other class.
• Countless tools to both crowd control or escape danger.

Weaknesses

• Extremely immobile and vulnerable to slows after Sprint and Vanish are expended.
• Limited means of self healing.
• Vulnerable to disease/poison.

In Classic World of Warcraft every race in the game, besides Taurens, can be a Rogue. Each has its own unique strengths when it comes to surviving the Hardcore Challenge. Hardcore is about safety, and some races bring more safety than others.

• Dwarf — Dwarf brings Stoneform which allows you to dispel any amount of Poison, Disease or Bleed off you on a two minute cooldown. This is an amazing ability that can save your life many times, as you'll be trying to go into stealth and the Poison, Bleed or Disease will damage you, knocking you back out of stealth. This racial alone makes Dwarf one of, if not the, best option for races as a Rogue for the Alliance.
• Gnome — Gnomes have one of the only Root/Slow breaks in the game with Escape Artist, which will remove all Root and any Slow effects, getting you out of many dangerous situations that you will encounter while leveling. Gnomes also have increased Engineering skill, which is nice because Engineering is one of the best and safest professions for Rogues in Hardcore. Both of these combined makes for Gnome being a solid racial choice for Rogue.
• Human — While Humans don't have as helpful racials as the Gnome or Dwarf, it does have some slight Spirit gain to help with your Health Regeneration. They also have Sword Specialization and Mace Specialization, which will increase your ability to hit enemies while leveling if using a Sword or Mace, both of which you will be using on your journey as a Rogue. However, this really matters once you make it to 60.
• Night Elves — Night Elves have increased Dodge by 1%, allowing the enemy to miss you more, reducing the damage you'll take fighting mobs. They also have increased Nature Resistance, reducing any Poison damage you may take.

• Undead — Undead are one of, if not the best race to be as a Rogue if you've gone Horde. They have an extremely helpful on use ability that will break any Fear or Charm ability with Will of the Forsaken. This can come in handy many times while leveling. Undead have access to Cannablize, which is exactly what it sounds like. You can eat Humanoid and Undead mobs to heal you for 7% of your maximum Health every 2 seconds, lasting for 10 seconds. This can come in handy as it is a nice heal that you'll be able to use frequently. Undead also can breathe underwater, which can be helpful for the few quests that have you underwater for a long period of time. Undead come with additional Shadow Resistance, helping you mitigate some mobs that deal Shadow Damage.
• Orc — Orc has a pretty powerful racial in Hardiness, which should not be underestimated; it increases your chance to resist any kind of stunning ability by 25%. This can be lifesaving in many ways. Not only that, but Orcs also have Blood Fury, increasing base melee attack power by 25% for 15 sec. This is a very powerful cooldown that should be used as frequently as possible with your other Rogue cooldowns.
• Troll — Trolls are another amazing race for rogues. They have Regeneration, which increases your Health Regeneration rate by 10%, as well as having access to Berserking, which increases your Attack Speed by 10% to 30%. At full Health the Attack Speed increase is 10% ramping up to 30% as your Health drops lower. This is a very powerful DPS cooldown and to be used with your other DPS cooldowns.
• Taurens cannot be Rogues.

The Stat priority that you will be following for Classic Hardcore is very similar to original Classic, but with a larger emphasis on Stamina, the added Health can at times be the difference between surviving an encounter with an enemy or not and is typically more reliable than gearing towards just damage. Even in a best case scenario gear wise you still have a significant chance of missing and leveling in Hardcore is all about removing variability.

For a more in-depth explanation of what stats you should be prioritizing and their benefits to your leveling experience checkout our Rogue leveling guide listed below, specifically the Rogue Gear section.

Both Combat and Subtlety are amazing leveling specs. Combat brings more damage, while Subtlety brings more safety. Which one you choose can be chosen simply upon whichever gameplay you enjoy the most. It is highly suggested for Hardcore to put talent points into both Combat and Subtlety. This will give you the best of both specializations. There's huge benefits in Subtlety to pick up Preparation for the ultimate safety tool, while picking up Ghostly Strike, Improved Sap, Serrated Blades, Hemorrhage and Dirty Deeds, then putting the rest of the points into Combat all the way down to Blade Flurry, while picking up all the vital Combat talents like Improved Gouge, Riposte, Precision, Lightning Reflexes and Improved Sprint. There's more information below about both specs. Assaassination is not suggested to take for hardcore as it simply lacks the both the damage and safety that either of the other two specs can bring.

Combat is more in your face and about doing the most damage you can do. With powerful talents like Blade Flurry, which allows you to cleave another target, while also increasing your attack speed by 20% for 15 seconds, Adrenaline Rush will increase your energy regeneration by 100% for 15 seconds, Precision, which gives you a higher chance to hit with your weapons, Improved Sprint which makes Sprint remove all movement impairing affects and a myriad of other talents that buff up your weapons, depending on which you use. Endurance reduces the cooldown of your Sprint and Evasion by 1.5 minutes and Lightning Reflexes significantly increases your chance to dodge. You also have Riposte which is a very strong ability that allows you to deal 150% weapon damage, while also disarming the target for 6 seconds. This ability can only be used after you parry, which happens a lot, and it's only a 6 second cooldown. This spec is about running up to your mobs and dominating them with Blade Flurry and all of the damage we just discussed. All in all Combat is an amazing and very powerful specialization to choose.

For a detailed route on how to spend each of your talent points while leveling check out our Combat Rogue talent build guide specifically for leveling. This page also includes a Combat specific priority list of how to deal maximum damage while leveling.

Subtlety sacrifices some damage for safety and for the ability to creep through the shadows. It has a couple of the safest talents in the entire game. Preparation resets all of your cooldowns, meaning you will be able to Vanish, Evasion and Sprint twice. Ghostly Strike is a strike that deals 125% weapon damage, but most importantly increases your chance to dodge by 15% for 7 seconds, while only being on a 20 second cooldown. With such a short cooldown, you will be able to have this up on every enemy that you face. Dodge is amazing in Hardcore, as the more you dodge, the less damage you take, the less chance of you dying. This has very good synergy with Setup if you choose to take it, which gives you a 45% chance to add a combo point after dodging their attack. Note that it's not suggested to go all the way down to Premeditation, since that is largely a PvP talent, and not worth getting in the first place.

Talents like Opportunity and Improved Ambush allow you to do a ton of damage with your Ambush, which is very strong in the early game, and remains strong throughout the leveling journey on humanoids. As a side note, use a macro that equips a dagger when you ambush, but another macro that will equip your main weapon back on when you Hemorrhage or Sinister Strike if spec'd to Combat. Outside of that, you have Hemorrhage, which replaces Sinister Strike, costs less energy and instead when it does damage, it causes the target to Hemorrhage, increasing any physical damage dealt to the target. Making not only you do more damage, but your bleeds do more as well. Speaking on bleeds, Serrated Blades not only ignores some of your targets armor, but also increases the damage of your Rupture, while Dirty Deeds reduces the energy cost of your other bleed, Garrote as well as Cheap Shot. This spec is all about opening with either Ambush, Cheap Shot or Garrote, depending on your enemy, then Ghostly Striking for the 15% dodge and safely deleting all foes.

Additionally, talents like Master of Deception and Camouflage allow you to move much faster in Stealth, while also making it close to impossible for enemies to see you while in stealth. Finally, Improved Sap gives you a 90% chance to return back to Stealth after you Sap, allowing you to safely take on more than one enemy by being able to sap, stay in stealth and properly open on the main target. All in all Subtlety is an amazing specialization to choose.

Professions are extremely important for not just Rogues, but for anyone in Hardcore. They do a range of things from providing extra damage, boosting your damage via buffs or providing you with items that can get you out of any sticky situation. When it comes to which professions are the best for Rogue, both Engineering and Alchemy are great. You have the option of pairing them with their gathering profession, for example Engineering would require materials that you'd need to be Mining to get, and Alchemy requires you to pick herbs via Herbalism. However you are allowed to use the auction house on the Official Hardcore server, making it exponentially easy to get the materials, if you don't want to farm them yourself. To make it even easier, you can simply choose to go Engineering, and just buy all the potions and elixirs that Alchemy would provide from the auction house or from trading another player with the Alchemy profession. This allows you to get all the amazing perks of Enchanting, while still getting the perks of Alchemy.

If you're SSF - Solo Self Found - meaning you are not using the auction house or trading, then below will be a brief breakdown on the profession pairings.

Herbalism and Alchemy is the best option for Rogues in Hardcore as it will allow you to make consumable potions that not only give you a burst of health in an emergency situation, but also offer considerable stat increases and the occasionally solution to a niche situation. You get potions that give you Agility, Strength, Crit, Defense, Stamina, Hp5 and much more. These are all great as it makes you much tankier, while also significantly increasing your damage output. The only downside to this profession being the time you must invest to harvest your own materials via Herbalism. You also can easily make Thistle Tea and Blinding Powder, which are both needed.

As with all the Hardcore classes, Mining and Engineering is an amazing pairing of professions. It provides the most safety out of the out of the professions as well as a decent amount of extra damage with all the grenades and bombs. Target Dummy is a usable item that will instantly redirect threat to it, causing mobs to stop attacking you for either 15 seconds or until it dies. This is a get out of jail free card. However, Rogues have the ability to Vanish when things go bad, and if you're Subtlety, thanks to Preparation, you'll be able to Vanish twice if needed.

Some Rogues choose to go Skinning and Leatherworking in order to craft some leather gear while they are leveling. This is not really suggested as you will end up finding gear out in the open world, from quests and from any dungeons you choose to do, but Leatherworking could come in handy if you're looking to fill in some missing slots. Skinning is nice as well, since it provides a nice amount of gold from vendoring all the creatures you skin along your journey.

These are all secondary professions, so you can get them without getting in the way of your two major professions that we're about to talk about. You should always be First Aid and keep your bandages up to date. You can easily use a bandange while you Gouge an enemy and you'll find yourself doing that a lot. Fishing and Cooking are great for some extra stat buffs and you can level up your cooking simply by fishing. You also need to have atleast 60 cooking in order to make Thistle Tea.

If you are curious about the most efficient way to level your professions, or would like a list of many of the useful items you can craft, make sure to check out our Classic Profession guides listed below.

Use your stuns! Don't always just run in and try to kill everything. Plan out your combo points and attacks and use your toolkit. Rogues have the ability to stun, bleed, poison and more. Stuns are majorly helpful since you can bandage during them, attack them during it or even run away.

This goes with the last tip, but don't spam your energy. Take your time and use your energey wisely! You never know when you're going to need it.

Don't Ambush anything besides low armor targets like humanoids, ghosts and undead mobs. Otherwise it simply won't do much damage at all. Try stunning the mobs, or using bleeds on high armor targets.

Keep your poisons on your weapons! You should only be using Instant Poison and Crippling Poison during your journey. It's not a bad idea to always keep one with Crippling on it as well, so you'll alwyas be able to kite, or get away if needed. Plus, some mobs run away when they get low HP, and crippling will make them crawl away, so they won't pull more mobs.

Never Vanish while a mob is attacking you. This can cause your Vanish to not work. It's always suggested to get some space away from your target, then vanish. Or simply gouge/stun and move back a few yards, then Vanish.

While it is never suggested to fight elites, utilizing thrown weapons to kite can be the difference in being able to kill an elite. This is a tactic that should only be used against extremely dangerous enemies that you must kill. What you should be trying to do is utilize items in the terrain, like a fence the player can jump over, but the mob cannot due to pathing constraint, since the mob has no available direct path to follow you it will take the shortest possible route which will cause them to run back and forth each time you jump across the object. You can also use throw to kite mobs back to friendly guards or NPC's and they'll help you kill the mob.

Many people are enjoying Classic Hardcore by duo leveling. Rogue does quite well when paired with almost any another class. Included below is a list of the most popular/effective class duos and their strengths/weaknesses!